


Always Forgotten

by Red_Script



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Chubby Karkat, Demon Dave Strider, Human Karkat Vantas, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:01:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23182141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Red_Script/pseuds/Red_Script
Summary: Note on the first chapter: I never have nor never wish to be arrested, so I don't know what I'm writing right now.
Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas
Kudos: 7





	Always Forgotten

**Author's Note:**

> Note on the first chapter: I never have nor never wish to be arrested, so I don't know what I'm writing right now.

Being the last child was the worst, Karkat Vantas thought as he stared up at the ceiling of someone's house. His older brother, Kankri, would disagree, saying that being the older one meant more responsibilities than his younger brother, but what Kankri didn't realize was that Karkat was often forgotten by their father. Why should he be the good kid if nobody ever noticed his accomplishments? Who cared if he smoked, or did drugs (though he'd only ever done weed or mushrooms), or vandalized a few buildings? Nobody gave a shit if he got piercings or went to parties and got shitfaced. Those were the only times he got noticed, the only times he felt accepted.  
And yet... he always found himself alone, forgotten, the next morning. Except for this one.

Karkat wakes up with a killer hangover and an aching back. Groaning, he sits up and looks around the room- the cell, more like. Taking a deep breath, he nearly gags at the smell on his clothes. Oh god, vomit mixed with shitty marijuana and whatever else he did at last night's party. "Holy fucking shit, Kankri's going to fucking end me," he mutters, running his fingers through his thick, coarse hair in an attempt to get rid of the knots. His stomach growls, loud and obnoxious in the quiet.  
A loud voice from outside the cell calls his name, and he looks over through narrow eyes. "Your brother's here for you, kid," the guard says. Karkat stands, pushing his bangs out of his face and fighting the urge to flip the man off. The guard lets him out, leading him to the front where his brother was waiting. When Kankri's hazel eyes locate Karkat, the younger boy watches his face twitch. He knew he must look like an absolute wreck; there was probably vomit in his hair, and while he was in the cell he'd found finely ground keef dusting the front of his shirt, as well as some sort of white powder that he really hoped was just sugar. "Look, he's still a kid," the guard was saying to Kankri. "He's too young to be thrown in jail. But there was some pretty bad stuff at the party he'd been at yesterday."  
"Thank you for your concern," Kankri says- politely, but his voice and posture are stiff. "I'll be sure to have a conversation with our father that Karkat will certainly wish to join." Karkat rolls his eyes, picking at his shirt with his sharp black nails. Like hell he was going to sit through a lecture from Kankri while their father preached the word of God to him. Fuck, he hated when they did that. "Karkat, come on." He follows his brother out of the building.  
While they're in the car, Karkat's feet kicked up on the dashboard and his arms crossed, he watches his brother out of the corner of his eye. Kankri Vantas was the perfect child, the kind of kid every parent would want. Straight-A student, on the student council, teacher's pet Kankri who was studying to be a lawyer. Karkat scoffs quietly, earning a sharp glance from the other boy. "Why didn't you just let me rot in that cell? Dad wouldn't give a shit. He wasn't even there to pick me up, the asshole." That earns a glare that he pointedly ignores.  
"It's Sunday," Kankri replies in a careful tone. "Dad's at the church, like you should be."  
Karkat scowls, looking at Kankri out of the corner of his eye. "You know I don't believe in that bullshit," he snaps pointedly. "It's all a bunch of fakey-fake nonsense that people made up to get away with shit." Sighing, he shifts his seat so he can lean back. "Just take me home, Kankri. I need to shower."  
His brother shakes his head slightly, disapproving of the younger boy, but Karkat, again, ignores it. He's learned to ignore Kankri's disappointment. "When we get home, you clean up then come downstairs. We'll wait for dad to get home." He pauses for a second before continuing. "Karkat, I know you're just acting out because you're a teenager, but you need to get it together. I don't want you to be stuck in this town forever as some drug dealer living in a trailer park. I want you to be able to go out and do what you want with your life, be who you want to be. I'm off to college this year. I need to know you'll look out for yourself."  
"I know," Karkat says, so softly he surprises even himself. "Look, it's really not that easy. Everyone I hang out with goes to these parties. I don't want to seem lame. I don't want to go back to being a nobody. At least when I'm like this, people actually give a damn."  
Kankri runs a hand through his hair as he pulls onto their street. "Karkat, they're using you. There's some genuinely good kids in this town, you just don't know them yet. Kids that won't force you to steal from dad for drug money." Karkat looks down, trying to hide the shock on his face. "No, dad doesn't know you stole from him. I can't keep covering for you. Sooner or later you're going to get in trouble, and I won't be there to bail you out. Dad and I both love you, but if you keep going down this road, we won't be able to help."  
They pull into the driveway and Karkat unbuckles himself, getting out of the car. Kankri follows, locking up the car and making his way to the door of their house. "I'm sorry," Karkat whispers, quietly so Kankri can't hear. "I'm so sorry..."

That night, Karkat hears footsteps out in their yard under his window. He gets up out of his bed, placing his book on his nightstand as he peeks out the window curiously. A tall, lanky shape leans against the fence, arms crossed. Karkat jerks his window open quickly, eyes wide. "Alik?" he hisses. "What are you doing here?"  
"Karks, there's some freaky shit going on over at the barn. You should get your ass down there." Alik grins, messing with something in his hands. A second later, there's a light and Karkat can see it's a cigarette. Oh, hell no.  
Karkat turns the lights off in his room, pulling on a shirt and pants before hopping out his window and closing the glass behind him. "Alik, you can't do that here!" he snaps quietly, crossing the yard quickly. "Dad would kill me!"  
Alik lets out a deep, mildly terrifying chuckle. "Brother, your old man's passed the fuck out. The smell'll be gone by morning and he'll be none the wiser. C'mon, let's go." He grabs Karkat's arm.  
"I can't," he says. "I'm grounded."  
"They won't know unless someone up and fuckin' tells them, man." Hesitantly, Karkat lets himself be guided to the barn.  
'The barn' was an old, decaying farm building the high schoolers sometimes used to party. Even though Karkat had been there numerous times, this night the barn gave off a dangerous, almost threatening vibe. There were no lights, nobody wandering just outside drunk out of their minds. Just the building, Karkat, Alik, and a lot of shadows. No, there was something else; _someone_ else. A few someones, walking out of the barn in what looked like... were those fucking _robes_?  
"What sort of Satanic ritual shit is this?" Karkat snaps at Alik. The tall boy only grins as the other people surround them, one of them pulling Karkat's arms behind his back and another throwing a bag over his head. "Alik, what the fuck?!" he shouts, struggling to get away. This was too freaky, way too freaky, he didn't like and he just wanted to go home. He feels his body get lifted by someone, and realizes that while he was distracted, his hands had been tied together by some rope. He feels someone else grab his legs and hold them together to be tied as well.  
Karkat feels a scream rise in his throat, and he fights it back as he's carried into the barn. Through the woven fabric, Karkat can just make out the soft glow of candlelight in what he assumes to be the center of the large room. He feels his body lurch off of the person's shoulder, and a second later his right side collides with the ground and he lets out a sharp yelp of pain. Then, the chanting begins.  
Eyes squeezed tight, terror choking him as the air in the sack on his head becomes too heavy, Karkat tries to think of a way out of this. Except there is no way out of this, because he's been bound and there are people surrounding him as they do some sort of ritual and- oh holy shit, were they going to _sacrifice him_? To who? Satan? Some other dark deity they worshipped?  
"God," he whispers, his voice small and scared, "I know I don't really believe in you, but if you're there, please... help me." He feels tears leak from his closed eyelids and fall down his cheeks, and his body involuntarily begins to shake.   
That's when the pain begins. Someone must have stabbed him with a knife, because he feels the sharp blade cutting into his stomach as the chanting continues. As his breathing quickens, he feels the muscles in his abdomen spasm, the dark substance beginning to trickle out of the wound. Then, the blade is gone, and his stomach quickly becomes soaked with his own blood.  
Then he begins to scream.

~*~*~*~

He doesn't know when it stopped. All he knows is that he's not in the barn anymore, not in danger, but his stomach still feels like fire. Karkat curls in on himself, feeling something pull at his arm as he does, and he slowly opens his eyes, and...  
Oh. He's in a hospital, and some tall, dark figure is sitting on the end of his bed. "Y'know," the thing says, and Karkat swears he's never heard a voice so beautiful, "I don't really accept sacrifices, even if they are handsome."  
Karkat jerks up to a sitting position, yelping when the needle in his arm shifts under his skin. "W-wha-" he stops, confused. Was that his voice? It sounded so... tired. So weak. So... unlike him. Slowly, his eyes adjust to the light and he can see the figure a bit better.  
He's blond, has pale skin, and strikingly red eyes. The figure- no, the man- blinks slowly, and his eyes shift from red to black, iris and all. Then he blinks again and his eyes are back to normal. "Some kids found a book with a spell to summon me, so naturally they decided to do it and sacrifice you." He laughs suddenly, though it sounds almost forced. "Couldn't they have chosen some sexy virgin lady?"  
"Who...?"  
"Who am I?" He hums, thinking. "I'll need to think on that for a while. In the meantime, Karkat Vantas, enjoy the perks of our contract." The man disappears in a flurry of smoke and feathers, and a second later a crow is hopping off his bed and out the window, which closes behind him. A second later, the door opens.  
Kankri and their dad rush in, eyes wide, the tear stains not yet cleaned from their faces. "Karkat, what happened?" His dad half gasps, half whispers, holding the boy's head in his hands. Kankri moves to the other side of the bed, hugging his brother as tightly as he dared. "Someone saw you and that boy, Alik, leave, and followed you. When they saw the group of kids, they called the police." Karkat relaxes slightly as his father begins to pet his hair, running his fingers through the dark locks like he did when Karkat was a kid and woke up from a nightmare.  
"The police told us they found you bleeding out in some kind of ritual circle. Everyone else was dead." Kankri's hands were shaking as he checked his brother over. "Karkat, we thought you were dead. When we saw your body..." Karkat reaches out for his brother, gently placing a hand on his shoulder as Kankri lets out a soft sob. "What happened?"  
Karkat looks at his father, then his brother, and takes a slow breath. He wasn't dead. His family was here, he was safe, and the others wouldn't be able to bother him. Even so, he had too many unanswered questions that he would probably never get an answer to. Why did Alik lure him to the barn? What happened to the people that were there? How did they die? And... who was that person, sitting at the end of his bed who seemed to know not only his name, but what had happened? "I think... they tried to sacrifice me."

An hour later, Karkat hears the door open again, and this time a man in a police uniform steps into the room. Before the officer has a chance to say anything, Karkat's already opened his mouth. "I'll answer your questions."


End file.
